


the road home

by drakefeathers



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Batman: Red Hood - The Lost Days, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Medicinal Drug Use, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakefeathers/pseuds/drakefeathers
Summary: Set during Lost Days. An injured and exhausted Jason succumbs to homesickness.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 69
Kudos: 1118
Collections: Bat Hugs





	the road home

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [post](https://drakefeathers.tumblr.com/post/184562220036/au-where-lost-days-jason-is-defeated-by-the-power) a while ago about lost days Jason getting homesick and going home and climbing through his window into his old bedroom, and other people have written great things based on it! :
> 
> [materassassino on tumblr!](https://materassassino.tumblr.com/post/184923482467/au-where-lost-days-jason-is-defeated-by-the-power)
> 
> [ lilfunny here on ao3!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18701050)
> 
> I needed to exorcise my feelings on this idea by writing this so I could stop thinking about it. It took a lot longer than I thought :/

* * *

Jason only has himself to blame. He did tell Talia he wanted to train with the _best_ , after all. 

It’s taken three days of travel to get from South Africa to this remote cabin in what he _thinks_ is still China—his guide just laughed at him when he asked, before pointing up the slope of the mountain and leaving him to make the trek on his own. He thinks he could have settled for someone mediocre, if it meant being a bit closer to civilization.

The woman stacking firewood outside the cabin looks more like some old farmer than a former assassin, but he as he walks towards her he sees the tensing in her shoulders, and the handle of the dagger she’s reaching for in her apron pocket. He’s definitely in the right place.

He presents her with the letter from Talia and a briefcase of money. She takes the letter first, scowling darkly and muttering imaginative curses in a multitude of languages while she reads it.

Jason smiles wryly, thinking they might get along well, but then she looks up and glares at him with the same resentment she holds for his patron.

The briefcase of money is opened, glanced at, and then dumped onto the ground as the old lady storms inside and shuts the door. Jason gathers up the stacks of bills, brushing off the snow and putting them back in the bag in case she changes her mind. He frowns—he prefers the greedy teachers, the ones obsessed with Talia’s fee. Those, he can control.

Jason stands there at the doorstep, in the bitter cold, and wonders if he should just turn around and leave. This woman clearly has no interest in teaching him, and would probably have already tried to kill him if not for the thinly veiled warnings in Talia’s letter.

The sun has already sunk low in the sky and he doesn’t relish navigating that mountain path in the dark. He pushes the door open, thinking he’ll stay the night and leave in the morning.

Then he sees the old lady slicing fish for dinner, her knife flashing through the air more quickly than his eyes can track, and he thinks, I want to be that good. He needs to be that good. So he stays.

* * *

Jason thinks he and his new teacher are getting along pretty well, all things considered. Sure, she resents his very presence, and spends most of the day ignoring him as he does tasks that seem specifically chosen to keep him out of the way, but at least she hasn’t attempted to kill him, yet.

At first, he’s only allowed to use a knife for chopping vegetables. She frowns at his technique, adjusting his grip for him. “Faster, boy,” she orders. He had a fake name ready to give her, but she hasn’t cared enough to ask.

“You got it, Grandma,” he counters a bit sardonically, as she’s not quite old enough for that. She doesn’t care enough to be offended. It’s a theme. 

He speeds up as much as he can without chopping his own fingers off. The task is meditative, and reminds him of being back in the kitchen at home— at the manor. Most days he would help Alfred prepare dinner after school, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables just like he is now. Sometimes he managed to make Alfred laugh out loud, a rare accomplishment that made him feel like—

The knife slips and he accidentally nicks his finger, cursing under his breath. Remembering is dangerous.

That cut is only the first of many. Soon his entire hands are patched up with bandages. He’s still getting used to how different his hands are, how much they’ve grown during that time he spent essentially sleepwalking. They’re broader and clumsier than they were when he was Robin, just like the rest of his body. His teacher shakes her head at his gracelessness, but soon she graduates him to throwing knives, possibly just to keep him busy. There are only so many things to chop, it turns out, but the amount of times someone can throw a knife at a tree are nigh on endless.

His first throws are embarrassing. He’s been trained in throwing weapons, of course, but these knives are different from batarangs. They’re larger, heavier, better for stabbing into flesh and gouging. Better for killing. They feel wrong, and so do his hands, and his height. It’s like learning from scratch.

He struggles for hours before his so-called teacher deigns to offer him some advice. She’s sitting outside a nearby shed, smoking and fixing her hunting traps. And watching him. 

“You hold it too tightly,” she tells him. “That’s your first problem.”

Jason didn’t notice until she said it, but she’s right. He’s got a stranglehold on the handle. On his next throw he consciously relaxes his grip, just enough that the knife flies out of his hand more fluidly, landing slightly within the target he painted on the tree. Much better.

“My old teacher used to tell me the same thing,” says Jason, remembering Bruce’s proud smile when he finally got the hang of the batarangs. 

“And yet, you have not _learned_ ,” she remarks. She says this in English, a language she speaks perfectly and only uses when she wants to make him feel stupid. It works.

Jason can’t really be angry with her. He deserves her spite. He’s the one who stormed in and disturbed her peaceful retirement in the mountains. And besides, lately he’s been saving up his anger for more deserving people.

His teacher finishes with her hunting tools and walks across the yard to split firewood. Jason has noticed that, whatever she is doing, she tends to keep a mistrustful eye on him. Even now, as she’s hacking away at the logs with an axe, she’s purposely turned to face him.

It’s fine. He doesn’t care. He’s here to train, not make friends. 

Jason yanks the knives out of the trees and drops them in a bucket to start again. He’s standing at the edge of a wood on a snowy mountain halfway across the world from Gotham, but in his mind he’s back in the Batcave, in its elaborate target range, looking over his shoulder after a successful round of training and seeing the proud smile that’s burned into his memory.

Not one knife hits the target. His last throw misses the tree completely and lands in the snow. His arms drop to his sides, heavy and aching, and he pants frustrated white puffs into the icy air.

The anger inside of him is like a furnace, it needs to be fed or it will die out. And then he’s left with nothing but a cold, empty spot in his chest and those gentle memories that haunt him worse than the swinging crowbar, or the Joker’s laugh. He would rather spend a night dreaming about his own death, instead of the dreams where he’s at home and Bruce is still his dad.

At night, before he falls asleep, he takes out the notebook that has travelled with him since he began his training tour. It’s full of plans. A map to revenge that he’s been sketching out day by day. Focusing on it helps him look forward, not back.

The anger within him rises up stronger as he flips through the pages, rereading old ideas and strategies. When he finally closes the notebook and shuts his eyes, his need for revenge is as hot and sustaining as the coals glowing in the cabin’s hearth. He lulls himself to sleep by running over and over in his mind the words he’ll say to Bruce during their inevitable confrontation.

The next day is even colder, the air so frigid it hurts to breathe, but Jason barely feels it as he practices his knife throwing with new resolve. As each dagger slams viciously into its target, he imagines that it’s the Joker he’s aiming at. He imagines Bruce, and Grayson, and anyone else who might try to get in his way.

He continues like that, training determinedly with only sparse advice from his teacher,until one morning when he walks up to his makeshift target range and throws the knives without pause, one after the other, and every single one lands within the painted targets. Instead of pulling the knives out and starting again, he turns and walks back to the cabin. He is finished with this lesson.

His teacher doesn’t look proud. She begins watching him more carefully after that.

* * *

Once upon a time, in another life, Jason thought that his Robin training was the hardest thing he’d ever done. It’s almost laughable, now, how little he’d known.

Bruce would never have let him train in this state—he has a hacking cough that’s been getting steadily worse since yesterday, and a chest wound from combat practice with his teacher that stubbornly refuses to heal. It was just a grazing cut, barely deep enough for stitches, but it’s long and awkward and he can scarcely move his arm without feeling the stitches threatening to rip.

Bruce would have told him to stay in bed, and Jason probably would’ve listened, back then. But Bruce isn’t here. Jason feels a bitter kind of satisfaction in pushing through the pain. He’s tried things Bruce’s way; not anymore. Not if he wants to be _better_.

Still, as he trudges after his teacher through the snowy woods, part of him wishes he had stayed inside, by the fire, catching up on the sleep he missed from his own coughing.

His teacher seems to share that sentiment—she whirls around, scowling, as his coughing scares off another rabbit. He just shrugs unapologetically, then doubles over from another coughing fit that nearly drives him to his knees.

“You’re a stupid boy,” she tells him, when he’s quieted down. “You don’t have to put yourself through this. Did you know that? You could choose not to.”

“Thanks for the advice, lady,” he says, voice hoarse and loaded with sarcasm, “but I happen to be pretty happy with my choices. Besides, you don’t get to judge. You don’t know anything about me.”

This could be the moment where that changes. Maybe she’ll retort with a challenge for him to share something. Maybe he could then take the opportunity to get an answer from her. Instead she turns away, letting the conversation drop dead, and heads off to search for new prey.

Hunting isn’t something Jason finds interesting, normally. He learned how to track animals and people from Bruce. He knows enough about guns. Putting the two together seems unnecessary. However, this woman doesn’t use a gun to hunt. She can hit a bird flying between the trees by throwing a knife at it, which he wouldn’t have believed was possible before seeing it with his own eyes. 

Sadly, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to reach that level of skill within the few weeks he’s allotted to this training. But he follows her out hunting anyway, hoping to learn a thing or two.

Jason leans against a tree, closing his eyes for a moment. The frozen bark feels pleasantly cold against his face. His head is starting to ache, and he thinks he might have more than just a cough.

A few teachers so far have ambushed him as a form of training. Trying to keep him on his toes, or just mess with him. Though one teacher took him out into the woods for a training exercise and actually, genuinely tried to kill him. Unsuccessfully. 

So it’s not completely unexpected when a knife whistles through the air towards him and thunks into the tree trunk less than an inch from his face. But when he opens his eyes, he sees that it’s not a knife, the weapon favoured by his teacher. It’s a shuriken, the jagged tips gleaming faintly with poison. 

Jason spins around to the other side of the tree just in time to avoid three more throwing stars. He risks sticking his head out past the trunk to survey his surroundings, and spots the assassin through the trees, coming closer. He has to move.

A flying shuriken slices the sleeve of his coat as he sprints to the next tree, barely missing his skin. He retaliates by hurling a knife of his own while running. The training is paying off—as he throws it, he can _see_ its trajectory deep into the assassin’s shoulder. He doesn’t wait to watch it hit its target. He barges into the thick brush where the trees end, running crouched over to hide himself under the branches. 

His foot hits a patch of loose snow and suddenly the ground is sliding away under him. He’s tumbling down a slope and crashes against a ridge of jutting rocks on his way down, pain exploding in his ribs so intensely that his vision goes white.

Jason lands at the bottom of a small ravine and lies there gasping for air that feels like fire in his chest. He can’t move. If that assassin finds him he’s as good as dead. 

Gradually, his breaths come a bit easier. Nobody shows up to either help him or kill him. He drags himself to his feet and treks slowly up a shallower edge of the slope. 

When he finds his teacher, she’s crouched over a dead body, searching its pockets. Jason is satisfied to see the bloody wound in the assassin’s shoulder, proof that his aim was true.

“Great teamwork, Grandma,” Jason says, panting. He’s swaying on his feet, and holds onto a tree to keep himself upright. “I set ‘em up, you knock ‘em down.”

“This is your fault,” she tells him coldly, eyes narrowed in accusation. “You brought them here.”

“I didn’t,” he insists, but it sounds false, even to his own ears. He certainly has enough enemies from his association with Talia, and Ra’s al Ghul is still out for his blood. “I… I didn’t mean to.”

It’s a flimsy excuse. She mutters something that he’s unable to translate, her tone scathing enough that he doesn’t need to, and turns away from him in disdain.

* * *

Jason barely remembers the walk back to the cabin. Somehow he ends up in his sleeping bag by the warmth of the fire, and he finds it nearly impossible to get up again. His head spins too much, and any movement causes a surge of pain that drives all the air from his lungs.

He’s so pitiful that his teacher is somewhat kind to him. She checks on his wounds and brings him water. Or, he thinks she does. In his delirious state he has a hard time telling what’s real and what’s a dream; he even sees Alfred crouched over and tending to him a few times. He may have called her by his name. 

At one point, he surfaces from the delirium to stark reality. He shifts, just slightly, and grits his teeth against the wave of pain. His teacher is standing over him with a large bag slung over her shoulder.

“I have a job to do,” she tells him. “I’ll be gone for a while. I’ll send someone to check on you.”

“A doctor?” he rasps. 

“Yes, of course.” 

He falls asleep again. He doesn’t know for how long. When he wakes again the room is cold, the fire burned down to the barest embers. Nobody is there with him.

Jason tries to get up to put more wood on the fire. He must have passed out from the pain of sitting up, because the next thing he knows he’s waking up _again_ , the room still cold.

He reaches for his knapsack and feels around for the bottle of painkillers that must still be in there. They were given to him by a teacher a few months back when he thought he had broken his ankle, but it only turned out to be badly sprained. The pills look innocuous enough, small white tablets in a vitamin bottle. He’d taken just one, once, and it was strong enough that he hadn’t dared touch them again, choosing instead to suffer though the pain until his ankle healed. But he kept them, just in case. In case of something like this.

With no other option, he swallows one and lies back, closing his eyes, as he waits for it to kick in.

Half-drowsing, wrapped up in his sleeping bag on the cold floor, he thinks of the warm bed that used to belong to him, and can’t help but wish he was there instead. 

He wants Alfred to fix his stitches and tuck the blankets snugly around him. He wants to fall asleep to Bruce’s voice reading his favourite books, feeling safe as the comforting weight of Bruce’s hand rests on his shoulder. He wishes for the life he used to have, now lost to him, across a vast divide of betrayal and irrevocable choices. 

Or is it. He wonders what would happen if he went to Gotham right now, and crawled into his bed. Could they all just pretend his death and everything afterward never happened? Could _he_? 

For a moment he thinks he’s willing to forget everything, forgive anything, to have it back.

The pain is dulled enough that he manages to drag himself up onto his feet without passing out. Shivering in the cold air outside his sleeping bag, he steps carefully towards the dying fire in the hearth and stokes it back to life. He puts in more firewood until the flames are crackling steadily, and as he warms himself he feels better. That pathetic nostalgia fades away.

The fire taken care of, he turns to scrounge himself some food. That’s when he notices that something is off.

Even before Bruce instilled in him the obsessive habit of cataloguing every detail of his surroundings, Jason knew the signs of a place abandoned in a hurry. Neater than a ransacking, instead of drawers hanging open and items strewn about in a reckless search, certain things just happen to be gone, as though they were never there at all.

Like the old family photos on the side table that he’d once been snapped at for examining too closely. The briefcase of money he’d left leaning against the wall is gone, too. He knows that she’s not coming back.

His teacher left, probably hoping that he would die here. He should be angry, or hurt, but he’s gotten used to being let down by adults. His own mother did far worse.

Jason sighs, and starts packing.

* * *

Jason is finally blessed with a stroke of good luck—a farm at the base of the mountain has a truck, which he makes short work of stealing. He drives for a long time, past several small towns, until the road gets wider and eventually paved. He pulls over once his cell phone has enough signal to make a call. Talia picks up quickly, she always does.

“My teacher skipped town,” Jason says. “Pretty sure she’s gone for good.”

“A pity. You could have learned much from her. She was one of our best agents, once.”

“It’s fine. We can find someone else,” he says unenthusiastically as he leans his free arm across the steering wheel and rests his dizzy head against it. Training is the least of his concerns right now. “Promise me you’ll leave her alone after this. She made it very clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with you, or me, or the League.”

Talia gives a noncommittal hum. “Where are you now?”

“I don’t know, exactly.” He lifts his head and squints at a sign up ahead, but he’s too messed up to decipher it. The symbols waver and blur in his vision, unreadable.

“You sound unwell,” Talia remarks.

“I’ve had a bit of a rough time. Just a bit. Looking forward to getting as far away from this shit heap of a mountain as possible.”

“Do you need immediate medical attention, or will you be able to make it to Hong Kong? I have a doctor there on my payroll. She’s discreet, and does excellent work.”

“I can wait, it’s not that bad. I’ll live,” he jokes weakly. Talia gives an admonishing _tsk_ at his poor attempt at humour. “I’m serious, T. Just got a bad cold or something. Couple of bruises.” He desperately needs to cough, but he holds it back. There’s no need to worry her.

“Very well. I’ll let the doctor know to meet you at my penthouse. It will be a week or so before I finish up my business here and rendezvous with you, but I trust you’ll be able to keep yourself out of trouble until then,” she says. He can hear her typing. “I have your location. I’ll send you directions to the closest agent, who will arrange the rest of your travel.”

“Sounds good.” Jason swallows around his dry throat. “I— I’ll be glad to see you again.”

There’s a pause. He can tell she’s smiling. “I will, as well. Travel safely.”

* * *

Between the painkillers and the fever, Jason spends most of his trip back to Talia in a disoriented haze. There’s a car, then a different car, and a plane, then a bigger plane, the world around him distant and vague in a way that’s unsettlingly familiar.

Whenever he sits down for too long he falls into fitful bursts of sleep, never restful enough, but full of vivid and troubling dreams.

He dreams of knives in his hands, carving open the tires of the Batmobile, as the manor burns in the distance. He dreams about being small and drowsy and held in a strong pair of arms, carried up endless stairs. Unable to lift his head, or open his eyes, but knowing he’s safe. 

He dreams that he’s sitting at the breakfast table, frantically studying for an exam he’d forgotten was today. Alfred chides him for being late, but Jason ignores him as best he can and tries to read the constantly shifting text on the page, knowing that the most important answer is right in front of him.

“Master Jason,” Alfred says sternly, and it sounds so real, so near, that it startles Jason awake. 

The airport gate he’s sitting in is nearly empty. For a moment he thinks he missed his flight, but then he remembers. He already landed in Hong Kong. After getting off the plane he decided to sit down for a minute. Must’ve dozed off.

A screen on the wall in front of him is flipping between arrivals and departures. The sight of it stirs something in his memory, something important that had slipped through his fingers as soon as he grasped it. A bout of lightheadedness comes over him while he tries to remember, his vision tilting nauseatingly and edged with static. Once it passes, he looks up again and sees the answer.

The word jumps out at him like it’s close enough to touch. Gotham. There’s a flight to Gotham City leaving this afternoon. Just a few hours from now. Jason doesn’t believe in fate, not since he cheated his own by shrugging off death, but it’s certainly an odd coincidence.

Nothing is stopping him from getting on that plane except himself. He could be back in Gotham, sleeping in his own bed, tomorrow. He can see clearly down that fork in the road, the sight too familiar, too tempting.

He should stay on the path he’s on. He’s worked too hard to throw it all away. He should leave the airport, hire a car to take him to Talia’s penthouse and get patched up by her doctor. Once she finishes her business and arrives in the city, they’ll make plans for his next course of training. And it will continue, until the day that he’s finally prepared to return to Gotham.

Both paths lead to the same place, but only one of them might still take him home.

Jason reaches for that fire inside of himself, the steadily burning rage that has kept driving him forward, but it’s gone cold. Burnt out to ashes. He just feels tired. 

He finds his way to the ticket counter and buys an outrageously expensive first class ticket on Talia’s credit card.

* * *

Jason foregoes the first class lounge and chooses instead to lose himself in the crowds. For the first time in a long time he feels almost like a regular person, wearing civilian clothes, no mission, no weapons. He’s just another boy on his way home.

He sits by his gate with a cup of tea he bought in an attempt to soothe his aching throat. With nothing else to do, he takes his notebook out of his bag and flips through it idly. 

He used to think these plans were so important and righteous. Even just a week ago he believed in every word written in these pages, but now it all seems like the petty and overly dramatic journal of a younger version of himself.

The pain in his chest is becoming difficult to manage, digging deeper and cutting sharper with every breath. He swallows another pill. 

Jason turns to a new page in the notebook and sits there, tapping his pen against the paper, as he tries to plan what he’ll say to Bruce when he sees him again. The page is still blank when he’s called to board the plane.

* * *

The flight attendants in first class are kind and attentive in a way that reminds Jason of Alfred. And, like him, they’re too attentive—it’s challenging to hide every wince of pain, so he cheerfully explains that he was injured recently while mountain climbing, which is nearly the truth. They bring him ice to ease the bruising, and their simple acts of helpfulness actually make him fight back tears.

Jason carefully slips out of his seat while the cabin is dimmed and the passengers around him have fallen asleep, and heads into the vacant bathroom. 

It’s a significant challenge just to maneuver out of his shirt. By the time he manages it he’s panting from the effort. The first class bathroom has a large, lighted mirror that allows no hiding from his own injuries. The bruising over his ribs is in full bloom, dark blue and purple, as vivid as ink. His flushed face looks back at him, eyes dull with exhaustion. 

He splashes some cold water on his burning skin. Then, once he’s ready, he peels off the bandage along his collarbone.

Jason knew it had to be pretty bad. Still, the sight makes him cringe. It started out as a simple cut and he’s let it turn into an inflamed mess of mangled stitches. He cleans it up as best he can in an airplane bathroom with the tiny tube of antiseptic he brought through security with his toiletries and sticks on his last bandage. 

It’s not enough. He’s aware that the wound needs more care, and soon, or else he’ll be in real trouble. Soon he’ll be back home, he reminds himself. He just has to wait until then. It doesn’t seem quite real.

He’s been taking too many of those pills. They help with the pain but they’re messing with his head. Everything around him, even his thoughts, feels warped and disoriented. A sudden dizzy spell has him sinking to his knees on the bathroom floor, which is cool and comfortingly solid.

Jason’s sick of it, of being hurt and wronged and alone. Of what his life has become. Home is so close but it feels farther than ever. 

He remembers when he came down with that terrible stomach flu at the manor and spent the night on the floor of his bathroom. Bruce brought him a blanket and sat with him until he fell asleep. He closes his eyes and pretends he’s there, and just starts to drift off when another passenger’s knock at the door jolts him awake.

* * *

Jason gets the cab driver to drop him off about a half-mile up the road from the manor. Cabbies in Gotham know better than to ask questions. This one takes his fare quietly and makes no qualms about dropping him off at the side of the road.

The point of no return is now within sight. Jason spent most of the flight to Gotham running through each possible scenario, trying to prepare himself for Bruce’s reaction. Past experiences have taught him that he should always expect the worst from life in general, so he can’t stop imagining a cold welcome, a door being slammed in his face by the man who didn’t even care enough to avenge him. He doesn’t want to believe it could be true, but the fear gnaws at him.

Each step is an effort, like slogging through deep sand. He pauses a few times, thinking about turning back, but he forces himself to keep moving forward.

He doesn’t walk up to the front gate. If he does, they won’t simply buzz him in. They still think he’s buried in the ground, they’ll think it’s a trick. He’ll be forced to stand outside and explain himself until they can verify his story. He can’t handle that right now. He can’t bear to plead for entry to his own home.

There’s a very narrow section of the west fence that the security cameras are blind to. He discovered it as a kid, and used it to sneak out more than once. Maybe Bruce has reconfigured the cameras since, Jason can’t know for sure, but he doesn’t dwell on that concern. The big tree next to the fence seems smaller and easier to climb than it used to—he’s grown a lot faster than it.

Jason has no doubt that he’s setting off all manner of sensors and alarms as he drags himself up the trellis near his bedroom window, inch by excruciating inch. Breathing is agony, so he grits his teeth and tries not to. He thinks he feels a few of his stitches tear open again.

His body gives out entirely after the final effort of hauling himself through the window. He collapses onto the desk underneath, sliding off and falling into a shuddering heap on the floor.

Jason is still lying there, unable to move, when the bedroom door opens. Alfred stands in the doorway with his shotgun. He lowers it and says something Jason can’t quite hear. He seems very far away—Jason is having trouble focusing on him, darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision.

“Hey, Alf…” he breathes out. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he’s pretty sure he feels a gentle hand against his face before he passes out.

* * *

Waking up in his own bedroom again after so long should be disorienting, or surreal, but it’s not. It feels right. Jason had doubts before, but being in his own bed, wrapped in blankets that smell like home, he knows this is where he should be.

His science textbook and flashcards are still stacked on his bedside table. He was studying for a chemistry test before he left Gotham. He’d forgotten about that until now. If he’d been around for that test, if he’d never gone to Ethiopia, he would probably be applying to colleges right now. 

He’d thought the Jason he used to be, the one that belonged in this room and cared about things like school, had died in that explosion. But maybe that’s not true. He feels very close. All around him, just within reach.

Jason must have been asleep for a few hours, the sun has begun to set outside and his room is getting dim. Light from the hallway is leaking under his door—he can see shadows moving behind it, and hear faint voices. He can’t make out the words, but the low rumble of Bruce’s voice is unmistakeable.

It’s been years since he’s seen Bruce. He’s spent months planning their eventual confrontation, and now he’s _r_ _ight there_ , only a single door between them.

Jason pulls the blanket over his head so he’s fully cocooned. He hears the door open, hears Bruce’s footsteps, hears him breathing. He shifts the blankets slightly so he can see through a crack—he can only see a slice of Bruce’s shirt, his arms, and it’s still too much. 

“Jason,” Bruce says, and he shouldn’t be allowed to say Jason’s name like that, like it’s something precious to him. “How are you here? How can you be alive?” 

Jason turns his face away and groans into his pillow. 

“Tell me what happened.” Bruce insists. He tugs aside the blanket covering Jason’s face.

It’s only been a couple years, but Bruce looks like he’s aged nearly a decade. Even in the dim light of the room, Jason can see the new lines etched into his face, the dark circles under his eyes. But then he smiles, small and fond and acknowledging. The smile that was always just for Jason, specifically. The years seem to fade away, and he looks exactly like the Bruce that Jason couldn’t stop remembering.

Jason scowls back at him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbles. "If you gotta know so badly, phone up Talia, or Ra’s, and they can fill you in on the whole story.”

That wipes the smile right off of Bruce’s face. Jason feels a surge of satisfaction in throwing him off-balance, seeing the flash of confusion in that split second before his expression hardens into a mask.

Bruce holds up a bottle of pills—the painkillers from Jason’s bag. Of course he searched through it. “How many of these have you taken?”

“I dunno. A bunch.” He stopped keeping track, stupidly.

“I’m throwing them out,” Bruce tells him. Jason doesn’t protest, but his pain-wracked body does as he succumbs to another fit of coughing that makes his lungs feel aflame. Tears of pain spring to his eyes and he holds onto his ribs gingerly.

“You’re injured,” Bruce realizes. He reaches toward Jason in concern, but Jason’s glare stops him cold. He withdraws his hand, clenching it into a fist at his side, and turns to the door. “Alfred will look after you. I have a call to make.”

The door closes behind Bruce, and Jason can hear another hushed discussion from the hallway. The voices are sharper this time—they’re arguing. He’s able to catch a few words here and there.

“—shouldn’t be possible,” Bruce is saying. “—Lazarus Pit—“

“Poor boy—“ That’s Alfred. It’s been so long since Jason’s heard his voice. 

“—wrong. Keep your guard up—“

“—ridiculous.”

The conversation doesn’t last long, and soon Alfred enters the room, carrying a medical kit. Unlike Bruce, he’s never cared for the dark, and he flicks on the light switch. Jason blinks rapidly at the sudden brightness.

“You gave me quite a fright earlier, Master Jason. I thought you were a very brave and foolish burglar.”

“Sorry, Alfred.”

“No need to apologize. I am simply— very grateful to see you again.”

Jason has never heard Alfred’s voice break like that, like he’s holding himself back from crying. Alarmed, Jason attempts to sit up, but only manages to cause himself a great deal of pain. He lies there, wincing, while Alfred turns and busies himself with the medical kit for what seems like longer than necessary.

“May I?” Alfred asks, holding a pair of scissors. Jason gives a jerky nod and closes his eyes as his shirt is snipped away. He doesn’t want to see the sad look on Alfred’s face as the bruises and wounds are revealed, the proof of how badly he’s let Alfred down by not taking care of himself.

The bandage is peeled from his chest, and he hears Alfred’s intake of breath. “Oh dear. That’s quite infected. We’ll clean that up and get you started on antibiotics. I would also like to take you downstairs for some tests to see whether those ribs are broken.”

“I’m pretty sure I just bruised a couple.”

“Forgive me for being motherly, Master Jason, but after everything that’s happened I would prefer to take the time to be absolutely certain.” Alfred holds out his hand. “Now, shall I help you out of bed and towards the bathroom? You’ve had a long journey, it would be good to get you cleaned up before I dress that wound with a fresh bandage.”

Once Jason is standing, with Alfred supporting him, he realizes that he’s the taller one now. It doesn’t seem right. He has to bite his lip to hold back a sudden surge of grief and bitter regret.

Alfred’s arm is steady across his back. Jason turns, folding himself into Alfred’s arms and pressing his face against the man’s shoulder. Neither of them speak. Alfred pats his back comfortingly, not letting go until Jason is able to safely show his face again and pulls away first.

Later, when Jason is laying on a medical cot in the Batcave getting his stitches fixed, he notices Alfred pause and frown at the skin below the wound, closer to his navel. Where Jason had once taken a few bullets from the Mad Hatter and nearly died. Alfred had tended to him much the same way, in the days and weeks after that surgery. The skin there is clean and unmarked now.

“They’re gone, the old scars,” Jason says, falsely cheerful. “The Lazarus Pit heals everything. Made me good as new.”

Alfred glances up at him sadly. “I don’t believe it can be as simple as that.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Jason admits quietly. He watches Alfred work, the stitches neat and tidy even on such an ugly, torn-up wound, until he can’t any longer and he lifts his gaze to the familiar stalactite formations above. “Can we... not talk about it? I know we’ll have to, eventually, but maybe for a while we can pretend that everything is like it was before.”

“Of course.” Finished dressing the wound, Alfred examines his work for a moment before leaning back and giving Jason an encouraging smile. “There, how does that feel?”

“Better,” says Jason, carefully feeling the edges of the bandage. It feels like it will actually begin healing, now.

* * *

Turns out that Jason does have a couple fractured ribs. Alfred will never believe a word he says from now on.

That’s a strange way of thinking. From now on. Like he has a future here, stretching out past the horizon. He ruminates on that for a while, floating along with his twisting and unwinding thoughts until he’s thinking about sailboats and can’t remember why. Alfred has him on different painkillers, and he suspects they might be making him a bit loopy.

These drugs are less potent than the mystery pills he was taking, but the side effects are heavier. His thoughts move slowly like syrup, his limbs seem to weigh too much to lift—that might be intentional, to make him stay put in bed, he deduces very gradually. He doesn’t mind. At least he’s been able to sleep without the stressful and confusing dreams he was having before.

It takes Jason a few tries to wake up and focus on the figure at his bedside, but it’s okay, he can take his time. He knows it’s Bruce. Bruce, sitting next to his bed and reading him a book, just like he did those times Jason got hurt as Robin.

Except Bruce is silent, not reading aloud. And when Jason blinks and concentrates harder, he can see that Bruce isn’t holding a book from their library. He has Jason’s notebook. Jason wrote it in code, but it’s certainly not good enough to fool the man who _taught_ him codes.

All his plans, laid bare in front of Bruce. He should have burned that notebook before he set foot in Gotham.

“Jason? Are you awake?” Bruce asks, and Jason has the vague memory that Bruce has asked this before, more than once.

“Yeah,” Jason rasps. He meets Bruce’s gaze accusingly. “You read it.”

“Not all of it. I wasn’t sure what it was. I thought it would explain—“ He stops, frowning, and says more quietly, “I thought it would explain what happened to you.”

“Did you talk to Talia?” asks Jason. The name makes Bruce scowl in anger.

“I did. But I can’t trust her account, not unless you confirm it.”

“Whatever she said, she’s telling the truth,” Jason says wearily. “Don’t be mad at her.”

“According to her own story, she kept you from us on purpose when you needed us the most. That doesn’t exactly inspire trust.”

“She took care of me.”

“Jason, you showed up here half-dead, while under her care.”

“Better than full dead. She’s got you beat there, B.”

Jason meant it as a joke, trying to fall back into the easy banter they used to have, but he may have gone too far. Bruce actually looks hurt.

“You were the one who planted the bomb on my car,” Bruce says eventually, looking down at the closed notebook on his lap. “I spent weeks trying to figure out who could have put it there, and why it never detonated. I couldn’t make sense of it.”

“Bet that drove you nuts.” Jason can’t help the satisfied twitch of a smile. 

“If you hate me this much, why did you come back?”

“I’m mad at you,” Jason admits slowly. “But. I missed you.”

Bruce reaches over and grasps Jason’s hand. Jason lets him. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“I’m still mad at you, though. I still might want to kill you. I’m not sure yet.”

“It’s okay, Jason. You can be angry with me. I don’t mind, as long as you’re home. Everything is going to be okay now,” Bruce says, and Jason wants to believe it, so badly. When Bruce squeezes his hand, he even squeezes back a little. “I know I failed you. I’m sorry. I should have saved you. Every single day, I think about how I should have saved you.”

“That’s not…” He inhales too sharply, and has to pull his hand free to cough into. “Bruce, where’s the Joker?” he asks hoarsely, when he’s able to speak again.

“Locked up in Arkham. Don’t worry, you’re safe from—“

“He wasn’t before. I saw the news. He got out, and he— and you—“ Every other word is interrupted with a cough, his breathing is too fast and harsh and he can’t rein it in. “You _let him_ — even after _me_. You didn’t…” He trails off into painful wheezing.

Bruce places a steadying hand on his shoulder. It helps, somehow. His breathing slows and hurts less. “We don’t have to talk about this right now,” Bruce says. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Typical,” Jason mumbles. “Coward.” Then, demanding but sleepy, “Read me something.”

Bruce never denies him this request. He picks a book from the shelf and begins reading it from the first page. Jason is too tired to follow the words, but the low, infallibly steady cadence of Bruce’s voice is familiar and comforting.

He isn’t sure why he begins to cry, exactly, but there are great tears rolling down his face and they won’t stop. Soon Bruce’s arms are around him, holding him securely as he sobs.

* * *

The next time Jason wakes up, he’s alone. The drugs have worn off slightly—his mind feels clearer, the blades of pain between his ribs no longer dulled. Alfred will probably come by soon to check on him and give him another dose.

His notebook is on the bedside table. He reaches over and grabs it, shame churning within him as he thumbs through the pages and thinks about how Bruce saw this, he _read_ this. It’s not enough to have the book back in his own hands. He needs to see it destroyed.

Slowly, gingerly, he lifts himself out of bed. The pain is terrible for a moment, but once he’s standing it isn’t so bad. He opens his desk drawer and digs out a battered geometry kit, his old hiding spot. His cigarettes and lighter are still inside the tin. 

Jason takes the lighter and the notebook to the bathroom across the hall, turns on the fan, tears out the pages one by one into a pile in the bathtub, and sets them on fire. 

He watches as the pages blacken and curl. The smoke stings his throat and forces him to step back, but he doesn’t take his gaze off of the burning pages. He catches some words before they burn up, phrases he knows by heart. He remembers exactly where he was when he wrote them, which corner of the world, what he was learning, which injuries he was nursing at the time. He watches it all disappear.

There’s a tapping at the door. “Master Jason? Are you all right? Master— Dear lord, is that _smoke_?”

Alfred pounds against the door frantically. Jason unlocks it before he decides to break it down. “Just having a little ceremonial bonfire,” he explains nonchalantly. Pushing past him, Alfred turns on the bathtub faucet to douse the fire.

It’s fine. The pages are sufficiently burned, mostly ashes. Nobody will be reading them again.

Alfred shakes his head at the mess. “If you weren’t already bedridden, I would be grounding you for a month for this event,” he tells Jason sternly. “Although, you had best get back to your room and convince me you _are_ bedridden, before I change my mind.”

Jason can’t help but chuckle as he lets himself be shepherded back into bed. He supposes he did ask Alfred to treat him like nothing had changed.

* * *

Home is full of familiar comforts, like Jason’s favourite minestrone soup, served to him on a tray in bed. It was worth coming back just for this—even if it means putting up with the very unsettling weight of Bruce’s gaze on him.

Jason does his best to ignore it. When Bruce turns the page of his book, during that small pause, sometimes he’ll look up at Jason in that scrutinizing way. Like he’s searching for answers, or something that’s not there anymore.

Talking is still too hard, they both avoid it as much as they can. Bruce fills the silence by reading.

Until suddenly, he’s not. One moment he’s reading about Anne about to leave for college, and then he stops. The book is finished. Bruce doesn’t reach for another. They sit there in tense silence for what feels like an eternity. Jason focuses intently on stirring his soup, ignoring Bruce.

“Jason, there’s something I need to tell you,” Bruce says finally. “There’s… a boy. Tim. He came to me a few months ago, and—“

“You’re training a new Robin,” Jason realizes. It sounds so absurd, but one look at Bruce’s face tells him it’s true.

He imagines chucking the bowl of hot soup at Bruce’s face and throwing the tray to clatter against the wall. Resisting the urge, he calmly sets the tray aside and clenches his fists in his lap to prevent himself from lashing out in other ways he might regret. 

He feels like an idiot. Like a lost dog that finally crawls back home only to find it’s been replaced with a brand new puppy. If he’d known…

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have come back here.

“Jay, are you okay?”

“Fine,” Jason says. It should hurt even worse than it does. Maybe he’s grown numb to being disappointed by Bruce. “Just. Why?”

“It wasn’t my idea. I was against it at first, but he made an argument I couldn’t refute. If you talked to him, you would understand.”

“Really?” Jason spits out bitterly. Angry words keep spilling out before he can stop them. “You couldn’t have said, ‘sorry but my last partner was brutally murdered and I can’t let another kid die for my personal crusade’. Something like that?”

“I did,” Bruce says firmly. “It didn’t change his mind.”

“God, you’re selfish. And spineless now, apparently, if some kid could just show up and talk you into letting him be Robin.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Bruce says. He lets out a frustrated breath. “I’m not doing a good job of explaining this.”

“I think you’re doing just swell,” Jason says sarcastically.

“Jason, _l_ _isten_ ,” Bruce demands, with a note of pleading that stuns Jason into shutting his mouth. “After you died, I couldn’t— I wasn’t coping well. I wasn’t coping, at all. Every time I stopped working, all I could think about was you. So I didn’t stop. I knew I was pushing too hard, getting myself injured night after night… but…”

He breaks off for a moment, brow furrowed in pain, deepening the new lines on his face and making him look so old. It’s not easy seeing him like this. It’s like staring at a gaping wound. Jason can’t look away.

“I was doing it on purpose, to punish myself. I think I was trying to get myself killed. I would have, if Dick and Tim hadn’t showed up to help me.”

Jason remembers lying at the bottom of a snowy ravine, waiting for an assassin to find him. He remembers collapsing in a dojo during combat training, and spending nights being kept awake by the sharp aching of every muscle in his body, only to force himself onto his feet again at the break of dawn. He thinks of all the new scars that mark his body—more than he’d ever gotten as Robin.

“I might know what that’s like,” he says softly.

“Jay—“ Bruce starts to say, frowning in concern, but Jason quickly changes the subject.

“I want to meet this kid.”

“You can. He’s actually been staying here, at the manor.”

A sudden fear seizes Jason by the throat. “Are you… adopting him?”

“No, I’m not. This is just a temporary arrangement, until his father is discharged from the hospital.”

“Good.” His throat is still tight. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Bruce again, so he sinks down in the bed and pulls the blanket higher, turning away slightly. “I’m tired now. You should go.”

“Alright,” says Bruce, standing to leave. “Rest well.” Before he goes, he reaches out and brushes his thumb across Jason’s cheek. That fond touch seems to linger even after Bruce has left the room. Jason presses his hand against his own cheek as if he can cover up the feeling.

He doesn’t sleep, not for a long time. He stares unseeing out the window, his eyes burning with anger and the need to cry, but no tears fall.

* * *

There’s a tentative knock at Jason’s bedroom door, and a boy with ridiculous gel-spiked hair takes a step inside, holding a video game console and a mass of tangled wires.

“Hi.” He has to take a second to clear his throat. “I’m—“

“You’re Tim,” says Jason. He thinks this must be some kind of joke—this kid looks like such a _kid_. There’s no way Jason was ever that scrawny, not even when he first started training. He couldn’t have been.

“Yeah. Tim Drake. And you’re Jason Todd.” He takes another step into the room. “I never thought I would actually meet you. I mean, for obvious reasons.”

“And I never thought Bruce would go ahead and replace me before the dirt on my grave had settled, but here we are.”

Tim grimaces a bit, but doesn’t seem cowed. “I… I brought some games. I know when I had my tonsils out, I got pretty bored of sitting in bed. I thought this might help.” He looks around the bedroom for a TV to plug the console into. There isn’t one. “Oh. I’ll be right back.” He leaves the games on the ground and hurries away, returning a few minutes later lugging a bulky old TV from another room. This he sets on the ground as well, frowning as he looks around the room again. He grabs a dresser and tries pulling it closer to the outlet. “Maybe if I can move this—“

“Leave it.” Jason is tired of watching this weird kid fumble about. That dresser probably weighs twice as much as him. “There’s a pack of cards in my desk. Do you know how to play gin rummy?"

“No, but I can learn.”

That’s an understatement. Jason teaches him the rules, and he wins the first game. 

Since Tim is here anyway, Jason decides to make use of him as an errand boy and sends him to sneak into the kitchen and fetch some snacks. Tim comes back with his arms full of chips and juice boxes—which Alfred never used to keep in the pantry before—and, more unbelievably, a plate of fresh-baked cookies that he must have grabbed right off the baking sheet, because they’re still warm from the oven. Annoyingly competent kid. Slipping past Alfred undetected with that many snacks is no small feat.

“So, why’d you do it?” Jason asks conversationally as he draws a card.

Tim looks up, confused. “What?”

“Why’d you sign up to be Robin? You know exactly what happened to me. Do you have some kind of death wish? Or do you actually think you’re that much better than me?”

“I don’t— I’m not better than you. I’m still in training,” Tim explains haltingly. “Bruce said he’s going to be more careful this time. He won’t let me out as Robin until he decides I’m completely ready. Which might not be until I’m twenty, the way it’s going,” he tries to joke, but it falls flat.

“Being ready doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. I was ready. I had experience. It doesn’t make a difference once someone like the Joker gets his hands on you,” Jason says bitterly. “And believe me, if he gets ahold of you, he’ll make it even _worse_ the second time around. He won’t be happy about his punchline being ruined.”

Even as he’s speaking, he knows his attempt to scare sense into the kid is backfiring. Tim can’t possibly imagine what it’s like, but he remembers. Jagged, broken memories of pain and fear like shards of glass. His heartbeat pounds in his ears as he tries to will them away again. Meanwhile, Tim looks back at him calmly.

“I know it’s dangerous. I know that any normal person would think I’ve lost my mind… but, I really think I can do it.” He shrugs, his expression softening thoughtfully. “It’s not about me, though, or you. It’s about Robin. After you died, Batman was suffering, and Gotham was suffering too. The city felt darker. People out there were noticing it, not just me. You and Dick, you both brought hope, you gave Batman balance. He needed you.” Tim gives Jason a bright, determined smile, one that looks uncannily familiar—he’s just missing a mask. “Robin can’t die. He’s too important a symbol for too many people. Somebody had to step up… and I was the only volunteer.”

Jason stares at Tim, frowning. The kid seems suddenly embarrassed by his impassioned speech and hides his face behind his cards as though thinking about his next move.

“You told Bruce all this?” Jason asks eventually. “When you asked to be Robin?”

Tim blinks. “Uh. Yeah, pretty much.”

Nodding slowly, Jason drags his gaze down to look at his own cards, though the game is all but forgotten. He gets it, a bit. What must have compelled Bruce to give this kid a shot.

Tim has got it bad. Jason saw the gleam in his eyes when he spoke about symbols, about Gotham, with more devotion and determination than anyone except Bruce, and then only maybe.

That little speech almost has him convinced he needs to suit up himself, if not as Robin then as _something_ , just to keep an eye on this kid to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. Because Jason can already tell that nothing’s going to stop him.

* * *

Evidently, Jason didn’t do a good job of scaring away Tim, because he visits regularly after that.

Jason still resents him, but he finds it hard to actually hate the kid. And it’s kind of nice to talk to someone that’s not Bruce or Alfred. Someone closer to his age, with no old wounds or messy history between them.

Tim manages to get his video games set up in Jason’s bedroom. It’s a decent distraction, though Jason never turns it on when he’s alone—it’s no fun playing unless he’s trying to beat Tim. Sometimes they play cards, instead, or one of the ancient board games that Tim unearthed in a closet somewhere in the manor.

Tim is interesting, Jason will give him that. The kid seems able to carry on a conversation with a brick wall, an important skill in his chosen profession. He talks about school, his friends and teachers, comics and TV shows that he enjoys. Jason used to be talkative like that. He has a hard time thinking of much to add to a normal conversation, considering how he’s spent the past couple years of his life, so he mostly listens.

One topic that Tim doesn’t bring up is Robin. Jason wonders if it’s because Bruce warned him not to.

They’re playing a racing game, Tim winning by a mile while explaining his latest Warlocks and Warriors campaign in detail, when Jason interrupts.

“How’s your Robin training going?”

The question takes him by surprise. “It’s fine. It’s… It’s kind of on hold,” he admits, slouching dejectedly.

“Because of me?”

Tim makes a gesture between a shrug and a nod. “Bruce has a lot going on right now, I guess he doesn’t have the time,” he reasons. But his eyebrows are knitted together in telltale concern. Jason knows exactly how Bruce gets, how frustratingly uncommunicative, and he feels bad for the kid. Tim looks over at Jason questioningly. “Besides, aren’t you— I mean, now that you’re back…?”

“I can’t be Robin,” Jason says quietly. Robin is good, bright, confident, and trusts Batman with his life. Jason is none of that anymore. 

Just the thought of putting his uniform on again, the colours he died in, makes his stomach roil. He remembers the blood running down his arms, staining his gloves. How the mask pulled at his skin when he clenched his eyes tightly shut, waiting for it to end.

“Do you hear that?” Jason asks, forcing himself to snap out of it. Tim looks confused, but hits mute on the remote. Jason cocks his head and focuses harder on the sound of crunching gravel through the open window. “A car— _two_ cars, just pulled in. C’mon, let’s go see.”

The window at the end of the hall overlooks the driveway. Jason peers down at two unfamiliar cars below.

“That’s Dick’s car,” Tim says. “And Barbara’s.”

“I guess Bruce finally told them.”

“No. It wasn’t him.” Tim flushes a bit, but there’s no guilt on his face. “They needed to know,” he says decisively. 

“Where’s Bruce?” asks Jason. “In the cave?”

“I think he’s still in his study. He said he had a conference call this afternoon.”

Jason smiles. “Perfect.”

He leads Tim into a spare bedroom around the corner, the one that happens to be directly above Bruce’s study. During his first week at the manor, Jason discovered that sound from the room below travels quite clearly through the air vent on the floor, if you happen to kneel down and put your ear against it.

It’s difficult to hear Bruce at first. Dick and Barbara’s raised voices are clear as day, demanding answers—why didn’t he tell them, how did this happen, is it actually real—but Bruce’s responses are too quiet to decipher. There’s a shifting noise. Bruce standing, maybe moving elsewhere in the room, and then Jason can just barely make out his words.

“His change in behaviour coincides with his exposure to the Lazarus Pit. Its effects are unstudied, but Ra’s al Ghul himself is proof enough of how dangerous it is to one’s mind. It explains everything—the violent and obsessive tendencies, the emotional volatility. Even the pattern of his actions—“

“It wasn’t the Lazarus pit,” Jason says angrily, keeping his voice low even though he’d prefer to scream it through the vents for Bruce to hear. He raises his head and looks at Tim, who looks back at him in concern. “I mean, they did toss me in there. But that’s not why I’m…” He takes a deep breath. “I’m _allowed_ to be mad at him. I was—I’m his _son_ , and the Joker murdered me. He should have been destroyed by it.”

Tim frowns. “But, he was.”

“Not enough,” Jason hisses. “Why does he get to screw up and never have to change, while the rest of us pay for it?”

A coughing fit is clawing at his lungs, demanding to be let out. He’s been steadily getting better, but is far from recovered. He holds his breath and backs away from the vent on his knees, accidentally catching the end table with his shoulder and knocking over the lamp to crash on the floor. It doesn’t shatter, thankfully, but the noise is enormous. There’s no way Bruce didn’t hear it. 

Ears still ringing, Jason listens at the vent but there’s only silence from below. Tim picks up the lamp and places it back on its table, then pulls Jason to his feet. They scurry back to his bedroom. Nobody can prove anything.

* * *

Jason is taken aback when the first thing Dick does is yank him into a fierce hug. Tears are running down his face and he’s apologizing in a choked voice. For what, Jason doesn’t quite catch, he’s too stunned.

This is nothing like the imagined Dick Grayson he’s been building up in his mind since he woke up, the one he was planning to fight one day.

That Dick had called him a disgrace to the uniform, accused him of ruining the name Robin forever, said that he knew Jason would never measure up, it was only a matter of time before he got himself killed. Jason used to imagine all the cutting things Dick could say to him someday, learning how to steel himself against it.

He’s beginning to understand that he may have been wrong about a few things. He wraps his arms around Dick and hugs him back.

“Hope you weren’t such a blubbering sap at my funeral, in front of everyone,” Jason remarks, after Dick releases him. Dick glances aside guiltily. “What?”

“I wasn’t at your funeral. I... I didn’t even know you were gone until weeks later. I was off-world, with the Titans.”

Jason shrugs. “Oh. That’s fine, turns out it was a waste of time anyway. Next one, maybe.” Dick barks out a quiet, strangled laugh, and immediately looks like he regrets it.

“Come here, kid,” says Barbara, reaching her arms out. Jason kneels to hug her, too. “You grew so tall.”

“Yeah. I’m still getting used to it. I missed a lot of puberty on account of being, y’know, brain-damaged,” Jason says airily, making Barbara frown and Dick wince sadly. “Bruce told you what happened, right?”

Barbara exchanges a glance with Dick. “Yes. In his very Bruce way.”

“If you’d rather tell us yourself…“ Dick adds hesitantly.

Jason shakes his head. “Some other time.” He doesn’t feel like recounting it all right now, that long series of bad decisions after bad decisions. He isn’t sure which part he’s more ashamed of—his violent plans of vengeance, or the fact that he’d given up when it got too hard.

“Anytime you want to talk, call either of us.” Dick pulls a piece of paper out of his wallet, jots the information down, and hands it to Jason. “I’ve written down my therapist’s number, too. You should try talking to her, if you’re up to it. She already knows all about the hero stuff. You can trust her.”

Jason squints at the scrawled number incredulously. “You’re seeing a shrink?”

“Yeah, for a while now,” Dick says, smiling. “It’s been good. I probably should have started sooner.”

“And, Jason,” Barbara chimes in, “if you need some time away from the manor, or if Bruce is being impossible to deal with, let me know. You can always stay with me, as long as you need.”

He nods. “I think I’m okay. But, thanks.”

They’re being supportive. He should feel grateful, but something hard and bitter inside of him resists. He blinks and their smiles suddenly seem forced, pitying. Irritation crawls across his skin like ants. He had reasons, for not trusting any of them. It wasn’t like this before.

Just as they’re leaving, Jason blurts out, “Barbara? Can you stay for a minute?”

Dick and Barbara exchange another glance. It’s getting annoying—there must be something going on between those two. 

“What is it, Jason?” Barbara asks, after Dick shuts the door behind him. Jason sits on the edge of his bed, looking down at the scrap of paper Dick gave him, struck with an urge to tear it to pieces. He tosses it aside instead.

“They don’t get it. None of them do. They don’t know what it was like.” He looks up at her. “But you do.”

“I have some idea,” she agrees quietly, moving her wheelchair to sit next to him. “What’s wrong? You can talk to me.”

“I want the Joker dead,” Jason confesses. “I wanted Bruce to kill him. I still want him to.”

Barbara frowns, thoughtful for a moment, but not surprised. “He won’t do it,” she says plainly. Just a statement of fact.

“I know.” It’s a truth he accepted a long time ago, seared into him as he screamed himself hoarse on the floor of a hotel room. But he still hopes, and it still hurts every time those hopes are dashed, over and over again. “If I killed the Joker, would you try to stop me?”

She doesn’t hesitate before answering. “No.”

Jason searches her face for some reflection of his own rage, the pained determination that haunts his own eyes whenever he sees a mirror, but there’s nothing. She seems… fine. He doesn’t understand how that’s possible, unless she’s just hiding it.

“Do you think it’s wrong?” he asks, uncertainly.

“I’m pretty sure my opinion isn’t the one you really care about.”

“But do you? I want to know,” Jason presses. “He hurt us both, but we’re still here. Other people aren’t as lucky. They keep _dying_ , because of him, and everyone just lets it keep happening. Don’t you think we should stop him, for good?"

Barbara takes both his hands in hers. Her grip is steady and firm. “Jason, listen to me. You have absolutely no obligation when it comes to the Joker. Just because you survived, doesn’t mean that you’re responsible—”

Jason meets her gaze calmly. “I didn’t survive. I died, and I came back. There was a reason.”

“I— I don’t know, whether there was or not,” she admits. “But, think about it—after everything that happened, _you came back home_. You chose to come back. You must have had a good reason for that.” She squeezes his hands reassuringly. “You should talk to Bruce about this. Tell him what you’re feeling. You know him, he isn’t one to start the conversation himself.”

He nods. She’s right about that—he _should_ talk to Bruce. He’s spent long enough holding back what he needs to say. 

Barbara hugs him again before she leaves. “I know how alone you feel right now. But you’re not, I promise. You have people who love you very much, and we’re all here for you.” She pulls away, smiling sadly at his doubtful scowl. “And I know you don’t believe me. That’s okay. It took me a while, too.”

* * *

Jason hasn’t been down to the cave since the first night. He’s missed it—the hum of machinery, the smell of the river, the dinosaur and other big trophies always waiting for him like old friends. It feels as much like home as the manor does, maybe even more. Upstairs he was always just Jason, a poor orphan lucky enough to be adopted by Bruce Wayne. But down here he was _Robin_.

He tries to channel some of that old confidence as he descends the stairs to the garage level, where Bruce is working on the Batmobile. He’ll need it.

Jason sits against the hood of the car, knowing how much Bruce dislikes it. When he was Robin he would have to hop up to sit there, his legs dangling. Not anymore.

“Bruce. We need to talk.”

Bruce, kneeling to inspect the tires, barely even glances over. “This isn’t the best time.”

“Are you kidding? Bruce, I was _dead_. You thought you would never talk to me again. And you’re already taking that for granted?”

“You’re right.” Bruce closes his tool chest and sits down on it, giving Jason his full attention. “Let’s talk.”

Jason has spent many a sleepless night torturing himself with futile questions and what-if scenarios. If killing the Joker had been the only way to save him, would Bruce have done it? If, by some kind of magical intervention, Bruce would have been able to bring Jason back by killing the Joker, would he have done it?

If Bruce had been in the room, if he had seen exactly what the Joker did, how much it hurt… If he had heard the way Jason cried out, would _that_ have changed his mind?

So many questions. But right now he only has one.

“Why didn’t you kill the Joker for what he did to me?”

“Jason—“

“Answer the question.” It can’t possibly be a surprise. He must have known this was coming. He read Jason’s notes, after all. It was all in there, the plans, the reasons. 

“You know why,” Bruce tells him. “I don’t kill. I can’t.”

“So, what? You just let him get away with it? You didn’t even—“ His voice wavers, but he stubbornly stomps down that bit of weakness. “You didn’t even want to make him pay, for what he did to me?”

“Of course I wanted to.” Something fierce and hateful passes across Bruce’s face, the shadow of an expression that Jason has never seen from him before. “I tried to, after your funeral.”

“What stopped you?”

“The helicopter we were in exploded, and he escaped. He was beyond my reach. And Clark was there—“

Jason scoffs, crossing his arms. “I bet if Dick was the one the Joker had beaten to a bloody pulp, Clark would’ve helped you kill him.” 

“That’s not true,” Bruce says sharply. Then he lowers his voice, and rubs at his stubbled chin in exhaustion. “Jason. We made an oath to each other when we became partners in this mission. Do you remember?”

“Yeah. To fight against crime and corruption,” Jason recites flatly.

“And never swerve from the path of righteousness. We promised each other.” Bruce leans forward on his elbows, frowning at his clasped hands before looking up at Jason. “I was ready to kill the Joker. All I wanted was to finish it, once and for all. Then, after he escaped, I had time to come to my senses. I realized if I killed him, I would be breaking my promise to you. I would become someone you’d be ashamed of. I didn’t want to let you down, again.”

Jason studies him with a measuring gaze. “That’s bullshit,” he declares. “I wasn’t just your partner. I thought I was your son.”

“You are,” Bruce says. Like that’s enough.

Jason rises to his feet. It’s satisfying that he can tower over Bruce this way. “Fine. Your son is standing here and telling you that— that I don’t care about the stupid oath! I don’t care if it isn’t righteous, I want you to bash the Joker’s skull in with a crowbar just like he did to me. What do you say to _that_?”

He’s provoking Bruce on purpose, pushing recklessly to try to make him crack. Because he needs to see it—the pain, the proof that he meant something to him. Not just a few reassuring words. He saw a glimpse of it once before, but he needs more than that. He needs to see Bruce as hurt as he was, as hurt as he _should_ have been by Jason’s death.

It almost works. Breath bated, Jason watches Bruce, pale and appalled but actually considering it. Then his face hardens, his resolve steeled once more.

“I can’t do it.”

Jason nods slowly, his jaw clenched. He didn’t expect anything else. He didn’t. And yet… 

He walks to the edge of the platform and grabs the railing, focusing on controlling his breath through his nose with his eyes shut tightly. When he can breathe normally again, he opens his eyes and sees his colours across the cave on the level above, held in a glass case. A memory, tidy and preserved. Bruce probably wishes he stayed that way.

“What if I killed him?” he asks over his shoulder. “Would you be able to look at me the same after that?”

“If it’s in self-defence—“

“I’m not talking about self-defence. I’m talking about seeking him out and murdering him. If you could even call it murder. More like slaying a fucking monster.” Jason shrugs contemptuously as he turns to face Bruce. “I guess you can rationalize it however you want. Just being in the same room as that murdering psychopath is grounds for justified homicide.”

Bruce stands. He steps forward as though to close the distance between them, but stops before he gets halfway. “This isn’t you, Jason.”

“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it is. I’m not your Robin anymore.” Jason picks up a nearby tire iron and examines it, weighing it in his hands. “You know what I’ve been doing, right? Since I woke up? I was training with assassins and mercenaries, learning what you could never teach me. I had plans, for the three of us, you and me and the Joker. You know, you saw them.”

“You were unwell. The Lazarus Pit is suspected to cause mental and emotional instability. Episodes of rage, mood swings—”

“It’s not the Pit!” Jason yells, winding up and cracking the tire iron against the windshield of the Batmobile with all his might. The reverberation nearly makes his hands numb, but it barely leaves a nick on the glass. Bruce doesn’t so much as flinch. “And, even if it is, it doesn’t matter! It doesn’t change anything.” 

Jason stands there, breathing hard, gripping the tire iron tightly and ready to swing again. He could do it, he could go for Bruce’s stubborn face next. But the urge is short-lived, fading to a familiar emptiness. The tire iron drops to the floor with a clang.

“I don’t even know why I came back here,” he says quietly, more to himself than Bruce. “I never should’ve gotten on that plane.”

Bruce reaches out and grabs Jason’s shoulder as he turns to leave. “Jay—”

Jason glares at him. Shrugs away his hand. “Don’t,” he warns icily. 

He storms away without looking back. Tears are running down his face, and he won’t let Bruce see him crying.

* * *

Jason can’t fall asleep. He lies awake half the night, his pulse racing in anger and his mind racing with what he should have said, what he could have done to keep that doomed conversation from imploding. 

Talking to Bruce like that was a mistake. He ripped the scab off of their healing relationship too soon, and underneath it’s a painful, bleeding mess.

His room is too hot and stifling, so he leaves his bed and climbs out the window, up to the rooftop where the air is cool. He sits there on the roof, tucked against a chimney, and settles in for a long bout of brooding. This used to be where he would come to smoke, back in the early days, before he stopped. His initials are still scratched into a brick on the chimney. 

He could use a cigarette, to steady his nerves, but since he came back to life the smell of smoke makes him feel sick for reasons he tries not to think about.

It’s a bit too cool outside to be wearing only pajamas. He begins to shiver slightly, crossing his arms and hiding his hands to keep them from going numb. He sits there for a long time. The sky is beginning to lighten beyond the trees when he hears something from the wall below—Bruce, climbing up to join him.

Bruce is carrying a blanket with him, that he drapes around Jason’s rigid shoulders. It’s infuriating, somehow, that he knew. Jason should toss it off the roof. But he is admittedly very cold, so he pulls it closer around himself. 

They sit side by side, not looking at each other. Bruce must have come here straight from the cave. His hair seemed damp and he still smells like Batman. He always showers when he returns home from patrol, but the Batman smell, leather and metal and Gotham’s night air, clings to him for a little while after.

“It’s not easy for me,” Bruce admits quietly. Each word sounds like it’s been clawed painfully out of him. “I’ve made a vow not to kill, but it doesn’t end there. Every time I see him, I think about what he did to you, and Barbara, and countless others. I think about how easily I could kill him. How much I want to. Every time, I have to decide. And I never know for certain what the outcome will be.” He looks down at his hands, squeezing them into fists, then letting go. “I’m scared. Of who I’ll become if I start down that path.”

“It could just be him, though. Just him. That’s all.” Jason knows he sounds like a whiny child, he can’t help it. “Everything would be the same, except he’d be gone, and the world would be a better place.”

“It’s not just him. I’ve thought the same about others. It would be so easy to justify killing them, once I start. Maybe the world would be better without them, too. But it’s not for me to decide.” He turns to face Jason. His eyes are welling with tears. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I do. You have to know that, Jay. Please understand.”

Jason takes a long, shuddering breath. “Okay.” 

“I also need you to know that, no matter what happens, or what you do, you’re still my son. I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.”

He gives a small nod, just a single tilt of his head. It’s not everything he wanted, but maybe it’s enough. For now.

He leans sideways and rests his head on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce wraps his arm around Jason’s back. There’s no sadness, no regret. Jason is only content, and wrapped up in warmth. He must have dozed off, because he’s being nudged gently awake.

“Jason, wake up,” Bruce is saying. “We should get down from this roof. I don’t think I can carry you to bed like I used to.”

“In a minute,” Jason mumbles, his eyes drifting shut again.

* * *

It was just an offhand comment—during dinner earlier that week, as he dug into a pile of mashed potatoes, Jason had mentioned how much he missed Alfred’s thanksgiving dinner last fall. Unbeknownst to him, that prompted Alfred to go out and buy a turkey, spend the next couple of days brining it, and now Jason is chopping vegetables in a kitchen that smells like his favourite part of autumn. In the middle of spring.

“You’ve gotten quite good at that, my boy,” Alfred remarks, watching him dice an onion speedily. “Have you spent some time in a restaurant kitchen? Perhaps take a few lessons at Le Cordon Bleu?” he teases.

Jason chuckles. “Nah. My last teacher was training me in knives, and refused to show me anything combat-related until I proved myself in the kitchen. Still not sure if it was part of her teaching method or if she was just giving me a hard time,” he says lightly, forcing a smile. “Before that I spent time with a sniper. Before that I was learning martial arts. Not like the kind Bruce taught me. It was…“ he trails off, biting his lip. 

“Master Jason, you don’t have to—” Alfred says, but Jason forges on. He still hasn’t talked much about it since he returned—Alfred hasn’t pried at all, keeping to their agreement. But Jason feels like now’s the time to start.

“It was different,” Jason says, more seriously. “It was about hurting people as much as possible. Killing them, not apprehending them. And I was really good at it.”

He remembers the pride he felt as he looked down at a bloody face and imagined it being Bruce. The same calm, burning conviction as when he held the trigger to blow up the Batmobile, or when he stood in front of a tree with a knife clutched in his hand—not entirely different from the one he’s holding now.

Jason sets the knife down on the cutting board with shaking hands. His eyes are stinging from more than the onions, and he wipes them roughly with his sleeve. He realizes he really could have done it—given another chance, or a little more time, he could have killed Bruce. He had wanted to so much back then, and it scares him now.

“Master Jason?” Alfred asks worriedly. Jason is gripping the edge of the counter, his head bowed and eyes clenched shut. Alfred kindly guides him into a chair at the kitchen table. “Perhaps you should sit down for a while. I’ll make you some tea.”

The tea helps, just like it always did when he was upset as a child. The warm cup in his hands grounds him in the present. He’s still too shaky to use a knife, after, but too restless to sit any longer, so he fills the sink and starts washing dishes.

Bruce walks into the kitchen while Jason is scrubbing a baking sheet, tousling his hair absentmindedly as he passes by, and blinks in confusion at the turkey that Alfred is taking out of the oven.

“We’re making up for lost time. And lost holidays,” Jason explains.

Bruce stands next to the sink, his arms crossed and his back against the counter. “Tim said you helped him train this morning.”

Jason shrugs. “Yeah, I taught him how to cut out a bat shape with the handheld laser. Y’know, important stuff.”

“Thank you.”

“For that? Really?”

“For spending time with him. He seems excited to learn from you.”

“Sure,” Jason says, unconvinced. “Probably best if he didn’t learn anything from the failure Robin, though. Don’t want him turning out like this.” He gestures at himself mockingly with a spatula.

Bruce frowns in concern. “You’re not a failure,” he tells Jason, reaching out and gentlytouching his chin, tilting it up to look at him. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“No, there’s something.” Jason can feel it, especially when he gets angry. That bitter, screaming tangle of emotions that rises to the surface, everything that couldn’t be burned away. And he’s not sure how much of it is from the Lazarus Pit and how much is because of Bruce, and how much has been there all along, before he died, before he even became Robin. But he’s tired of it. “Did you know Dick is seeing a therapist?”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

“He gave me her number. I called her yesterday—she seems nice, but she’s all the way in New York City, and talking on the phone is kind of awkward. Do you think there’s somebody nearby I can talk to, instead?”

“I’ll start searching tomorrow,” Bruce says without hesitation.

“I know this is a big risk…”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s a good idea. We’ll find someone trustworthy.”

“Thanks, B.” Smiling, Jason shakes the soap suds from his hands and hugs Bruce.

Bruce flinches at first, like he always does now, but then holds Jason more tightly to make up for it. Something about hugging Jason pains him greatly. Jason’s been meaning to ask him about it, and just can’t figure out how. Maybe he can talk about that at his first appointment.

Alfred tosses a dish towel at Bruce before he can slip out and head back to the cave. Bruce feigns a defeated sigh and obediently starts drying dishes. As he hands Bruce a mixing bowl to be dried, Jason realizes how much he’s missed the two of them working together, even on something as simple as this.

* * *

Nobody said outright that Jason can’t leave the manor. He knows he isn’t supposed to, but nobody _said_ it.

He isn’t sure why he’s bothering to come up with excuses. He doesn’t need to; he’s not a child anymore. Still, old habits.

A wicked smile spreads across his face as he sneaks into the manor garage to choose a ride for his afternoon escape. Bruce’s cars are all black or an obnoxious, bougie cherry-red, the latter usually destined to die crumpled in a ditch whenever Bruce needs a cover story for a serious injury. But there’s one sports car that Jason hasn’t seen before, electric green and gleaming. 

It looks brand new, not a speck of dirt on it, like it’s never left this garage. What a waste. A car like that deserves to be driven. He picks its keys from their hook on the wall and twirls them on his finger, whistling merrily.

Tim is doing sprint training up and down the garden path like the good and dedicated Robin that he is. He stops and pulls off his headphones when he sees the car rolling up the driveway.

Jason slows down to a crawl and lowers the window. “I’m heading out,” he shouts. 

“Oh.” Tim jogs a few steps closer so they don’t have to yell. He’s panting hard, and spends a few seconds catching his breath before he manages to ask, “Are you— Are you coming back?”

“I was planning on it.”

“Cool. I was thinking, if you had time before dinner, maybe we could spar? If you’re feeling up to it.”

“Yeah, I should be back in time. Get ready to get your butt kicked.”

Tim beams. “Sure! I mean, you’re on,” he amends, with a short, breathless laugh at himself.

As Jason drives away, he glances in the rearview mirror and sees Tim still standing there, typing something on his phone. Not hard to guess what. Little snitch.

If that’s how Tim’s gonna be, Jason will just have to make sure he pays for it in their sparring session later. Maybe throw in a noogie or two.

* * *

Last night, Jason rummaged through his knapsack until he found his old cell phone, then turned it on and sent Talia a text. It didn’t take long for her to respond.

She’s already sitting at a table, waiting for him, when he enters the cafe. 

Jason was worried that she’d be angry with him, after the disappearing act he pulled, but as he reaches her table she stands and pulls him into a tight hug. He blinks back sudden tears. During all that time he spent travelling and training, Talia was the closest thing that felt like home. Even now that he’s back at the manor with his family, he’s missed her.

The server brings their drinks moments after they sit. “I ordered for you,” says Talia. 

“Thanks.” He takes a sip of the excellent coffee. Talia always chooses the best places. “I’m sorry for not calling sooner. And I’m sorry for leaving like that, without telling you.”

“I admit, I was worried. Although, when I saw you purchased a ticket to Gotham, I had a feeling it wasn’t to kill him. I’m glad to see that I was right.” She smiles knowingly as she stirs her tea. “How is it, being back home? Are you two speaking?”

“Yeah, we’ve talked. It was hard at first, but... He’s my dad. I think we’re going to be okay.”

“That’s wonderful to hear.”

Jason hesitates, before asking, “You never wanted me to fight him at all, did you?”

Talia sets her teacup down slowly. “I believed your cause was justified. But, no, I didn’t want you to fight him. For your sake, as well as his. I always hoped you would change your mind. Or, at least, decide not to kill him.” She frowns into the depths of her tea. When she lifts her head, her eyes are full of regret. “I owe you an apology. This is a mess of my making. I should have brought you home as soon as you were recovered, like I intended, instead of supporting you on this path to vengeance. I should have told Bruce, even if it meant betraying you.”

“No. Don’t think that,” Jason insists. “I wasn’t ready, back then.” He remembers the early days after waking up, the screaming and blistering rage. It would have been so much worse, the hurtful things he would have said to Bruce, the ways he would have lashed out at him. It might have broken them forever.

“What of the Joker? Do those plans still stand?” asks Talia, treading lightly. 

“He’s in Arkham right now. If he breaks out, and I find him before Bruce, then... who knows.” Jason gives a noncommittal shrug.

She places her hand atop his. “I think you’ve made the right decision. You seem happier.”

Jason smiles. “I’m trying to be.”

Her gaze flicks past Jason’s shoulder, to something that makes her frown and lift her chin defiantly. He turns to follow her line of sight to the door, where Bruce is standing. His face is carefully arranged to look calm but there is thunder in his eyes.

“We must say goodbye, for now.” Talia rises from her chair and gives Jason a quick kiss on the forehead. “Good luck, Jason.”

“Thanks for everything,” he tells her quietly, as Bruce glares at them. “I mean it.”

She walks away, brushing past Bruce on her way out the door. He doesn’t even acknowledge her, and Jason knows how much that must hurt her.

“Funny seeing you here,” Jason drawls without looking up. He takes unhurried sips of the last of his coffee while Bruce stands beside him impatiently. A heavy hand grasps his shoulder, rather possessively, and only then does Jason glance up at the man. He doesn’t look angry any longer, just worried.

“Keys,” Bruce demands, holding out his palm. “I’m driving us home. You don’t even have a license.”

Jason reluctantly drops the keys in his hand and follows him out the door. “What about your car?”

“Alfred dropped me off at work this morning. I hired a car to bring me here.” They turn the corner to where Jason parked. When Bruce sees the car, his face goes a bit pinched.

“What?” Jason asks. Bruce just jerks his head to tell Jason to get into the car.

Much of the drive is spent in uncomfortable silence. And it’s a long drive, in the worst of Gotham’s afternoon rush hour. 

“I know you’re mad about me meeting up with Talia,” Jason blurts out, when he can’t stand the silence anymore. “Listen, she’s not what you think she is. She was nice to me. She was only trying to help.”

“You can vouch for her all you want, but even if her intentions were good, the fact remains that she kept you from me. I can’t just forgive that.”

“I gave you a second chance. Maybe you should think about giving her one.” Jason slouches against the door, crossing his arms, and mutters, “Maybe we could all use a second chance. And just start over.”

Bruce’s tone softens. “Maybe,” he replies. It’s something.

The engine roars as Bruce hits the gas to pass a ridiculous RV that has no business being on this bridge at this time of day. Jason watches with unconcealed jealousy. “This car is awesome, by the way. When did you get it?”

“I actually bought this car for you. I custom-ordered it for your birthday. Alfred warned me that it was too extravagant, but I… I wanted to see the look on your face, when I handed you the keys.” His expression is wistful, for just a moment. “After your death I completely forgot about it, until it was delivered to the manor on your sixteenth birthday.”

“Bruce, that is really messed up. Why didn’t you send it back?”

“I couldn’t. It was yours.”

“Well, thanks. I love it. Just wish you’d let me drive it.”

“Not until you get your license,” Bruce says, and Jason snorts cynically. “Speaking of, it’s about time we figure out how to legally bring you back from the dead.”

Jason jolts upright in his seat. “You’re serious?”

“Barbara had some good ideas. She’s already working on setting up the paper trails. We’ll need to work together to plan out every detail of the story. It has to be air-tight.”

“And then I’ll be able to get my driver’s license.” He sits back again, gazing out the window thoughtfully. “I could go to school again.”

“You can do anything you want to, Jay,” Bruce tells him. There’s a weight in that. 

They turn off the main road and drive up the quiet, tree-lined lane to the front gate. The same lane Jason had stumbled down not long ago, still clinging to a notebook full of revenge. But also the same familiar route they’ve taken together hundreds of times, after school days and trips into the city. The path that he’s looking forward to travelling countless times more.

Jason smiles, and finds himself making new plans.


End file.
